SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“For a believer, “a good life,” is nothing other than the life of Christ. “Christ within us the hope of glory,” St. Paul calls it. That life is revealed to us in the gospels and its pattern has not changed. All of the virtues are nothing less than the character of Christ being shown forth in our lives. They are formed and shaped within us by the work of the Holy Spirit, but not without our own co-suffering with Christ.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “…it is the whole incarnate lif

“…this is how the path of religious life begins. As the holy fathers write, the soul passes through three stages: slave, hireling, and son. The stage of the slave—a person does not yet love God, but fears hell. He keeps the commandments because he has been horrified by the description of fiery gehenna. This is faith expressing the religious instinct of self-preservation. The stage of the hireling—a person already hopes for reward. He fasts in order to receive the Kingdom of H

“Our plans and interests often interfere with our lives. We make all these plans, believing that we will never succeed in anything unless we arrange everything meticulously…This is actually how the world is. Things do not take place in a linear fashion, but together, and at once. History is not so polite as to “take turns,” waiting for one thing to lead to another. It is, undoubtedly the reason that all human plans fail in the end: we never “see coming” the train that hits us

“The thinkers of the Enlightenment wanted a fixed and miracle-free universe so that science could operate without guidance from religion, which they saw as superstition. But living systems–complex and organic systems–live through cycles of death and life and, in some way that even science should recognize, are always miraculous…What we already believe shapes how we see things. It is why some see a miracle and others only see an event with a natural explanation. It is why mira

“If you can’t defeat a passion, let it take over. If you may not, but really want to, then you may.” Such people tolerate no limits, living by the principle, “Take what is yours”, and therefore any “no” is perceived as a challenge. For them the slogan, “Live without limits,” becomes not just a choice, but an ideology legitimizing selfishness…In the long run, a life without limits does not become a search for happiness, but an escape from yourself—from your responsibility, the

“We may abandon God, but He never abandons us. Our actions may cause us to leave His loving embrace, but His love endures…nothing can separate us from God. He is with us, in our health. He is with us in our pain. He is with us in our healing. Yet, regardless of where we are at any given moment, He is still with us.” (Reverend Christopher T. Metropulos, D. Min, Jackie Morfesis) “The presence of the Holy Spirit, then, brings us into the presence of Christ “through faith” (Eph

“If the Kingdom of Heaven is the knowledge of God, it follows that the greatest sin is ignorance of God…Ignorance of God is always a sign that relations with God have broken down, have been terminated, whereas the knowledge of God leads one to union with Him.” (Archimandrite Aimilianos) “…knowledge about God, like any other knowledge, is absorbed only by the mind and memory, studying the Law of God in school usually becomes an abstract, external assimilation of religious trut

“…passion is an internal tendency a person struggles with (taken from the Latin word for suffering). It is not the transgression itself, or even the associated temptation, but rather a proclivity toward both. In general, the passions represent the disordered spiritual condition of an individual….The Church Slavonic word for “passion [strast, страсть]” is translated as “suffering.” From this comes, for example, the word “passion-bearer [strastoterpets, страстотерпец],” that is

“Paradise is the place where God dwells. After the creation of humanity, they were brought into Paradise to dwell with God and with the already created spiritual beings. Humanity was meant to grow to maturity and then depart from Paradise, bringing Paradise, the presence of God Himself, with them in order to transform the whole creation into Eden. Instead, by partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, humanity became subject to corruption and ultimately death…The first huma

“In the Bible there is a direct command: “The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God” (Exodus 23:19)…As the Apostle Paul writes: For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy (Romans 11:16)…We give the Lord a small portion in order to sanctify our right to use everything else… what about time? Time is our modern harvest. And here the law of the firstfruits works just as strictly. The first thought is the “firstborn” of